Create sensor data manually

Configuration
1

I would like to manually add sensor data from my central heating.
Every now and then I would change the temperature on my central heating unit manually and at the same time I would add that temperature to HA as well.

My thinking is I can then use that temperature in the same way as I am using the other real sensors in and around the house and integrate it into graphs, showing these several temperatures and also use the central heating temperature.

Looking around I saw a template that seemed to do what I want (slightly changed for my purpose), but I am missing the knowledge to get it to work.

template:
  - trigger:
      - platform: time_pattern
        # This will update every 1 minute
        minutes: "/1"
  - sensor:
      - name: "cv_temperature"
        state: 42
        unit_of_measurement: "temperature"

The idea being this would create sensor data every minute for the value that my central heating now has, 42.
What steps do I need to take to get this working?
I tried to create a helper but was stopped while doing that because I needed to supply a device, but I don’t have that in HA for the central heating.

My central heating has no endpoint where I can request the current target temperature. Hence trying to do this manually.

Beginner level HA user.

2

Why not just an input_number?
That seems sufficient for this.
Or does it have to have unit of measurement? I’m not sure you can do that with number helpers.

Using a sensor like you had means you need to reload the yaml to update it.

3

Thanks for the swift reply!

My noob thinking is that I need this value in time in a sensor so I can add it in the same way I added these sensors to this graph.

Screenshot 2025-02-12 072839
Screenshot 2025-02-12 0728394777×1386 743 KB

I don’t see that an input_number does that here:

AS far as I understand what is written there.

4

It’s a few clicks and you can test it yourself.
But yes it does graph.

5

Thanks, this works! After the creation of the input_number it is visible in the graph.
Then after changing it in the entity of it that change is also reflected on the graph.